“Please, Uncle James,” Walker said. “It was our home. What if our mother has come back and is waiting for us?”
“She’d have written to tell us,” Mary said, playing with Ivy’s parasol until James gently wrestled it from her hands.
“Mary is right.” James put his arm on the boy’s shoulder. His heart was breaking for his brother and the children. “She would have let us know she was back in London.”
Walker shrugged off his hand. “Not if she wanted to give us a surprise.”
* * *
Shock was the only word to describe Ivy’s reaction to the condition of the duke’s brother’s town house when they visited the Mayfair residence.
She read the horror on the duke’s face as she accompanied him into the entrance hall. She took a hesitant step forward and heard the crunch of broken glass under her feet. She looked back at Elora and Wendover, standing in the doorway, and whispered, “Keep the children outside.”
But it was too late.
Walker had broken through the barrier of his two guardians and run into the hall, only to freeze amidst the wreckage of broken plaster, glass, and the odd piece of silverware. Family portraits appeared to have been wrenched from their mountings and shredded with a sharp instrument. Obscenities had been written on the wall in what appeared to be soot.
“What happened?” Ivy whispered, letting Mary hide her face in her skirts.
Elora put a hand to the emerald choker at her throat. “What kind of wife would do this to a man as gentle as Curtis? He gave her everything she asked for. I am sick to my stomach.”
James seemed not to have heard them. “Ivy, take the children back to the carriage. We don’t know who did this. The place could have been ransacked by street gangs after it was abandoned.”
“Let me help,” Elora said, her eyes filling with tears.
“You should stay outside with Ivy. You may help later, after Wendover and I make certain the house is unoccupied and safe to enter. And do not cry in front of the children. Hold yourself together for their sake. They’ve seen enough without having to remember their home as a desecrated grave.”
* * *
The duke sent a crew of glaziers, carpenters, and joiners to Curtis’s town house the next morning. By supper the house had been near restored to its previous condition and James agreed Ivy and Elora could unite to add whatever touches they felt would make Curtis feel more comfortable when he returned. It wouldn’t be the home he remembered, but close enough.
“The children will be safe enough here with the staff,” he said before he went upstairs to change.
“And where are you off to tonight?” Elora asked, arching her brow at him across the table.
“I might go gambling with Wendover. I see no reason to punish the rest of the household for my unpleasant temper. I assume you don’t require my help arranging cushions or taking stock of the linens? I won’t be late. In fact, I don’t particularly like the idea of either of you staying there alone.”
“The servants will be with us, James. Have your gentlemen’s night out in London. We’ll be fine,” Ivy reassured him.
After informing them of his plans, he went upstairs to change into his black evening coat. No sooner had he put it on and combed his hair than Mary crept into his room. He suppressed the urge to call for Ivy, then reminded himself what the child had gone through. Or what she still might have to face when her father came home.
“Don’t go out, Uncle James. I’ve remembered something very important.”
“Mary, dear, I’m sure it can wait until morning.”
She gave a violent shake of her head. “It can’t.”
He sighed. Poor girl. Poor, poor little wretch. “What is it?”
“Remember the man who came to the park? The gentleman who saved Lady Lilac’s life?”
James stared at her. “Are you referring to Sir Oliver?”
“Yes. That’s his name.”
“Has he done something?”
“I think he might have.”
“Tell me, then, Mary,” he said, swallowing hard.
“I was eavesdropping.”
“Never mind that. What did he do?”
“He hid in Lady Ivy’s room and tricked her by dressing like a maid on the night the doctor came to see you. She kept begging him to leave, and I thought he was a maid, but I didn’t recognize the voice until he came back to the park the day that Lady Ivy’s sisters were attacked.”
He managed to sound calm and unconcerned. “Why wouldn’t she have told me?”
“Perhaps she was afraid of him, Uncle James.”
He bent and kissed her on the forehead. “And she doesn’t know that you recognized his voice?”